this is a much greater threat to India/China/Japan than to the West. The US has coal, Russia natural gas, and Europe nuclear. The West has the infrastructure and more importantly the natural resources to deal with declining oil production...India/China/Japan for the most part don't.

take special note of India/Japan (and to a lesser extent China)...we can feed ourselves. They can't. War and famine usually go hand in hand...

Hi Beatsme,
If you really want to talk about peak oil — and I'd love to chat about it — please start a thread in the news section. We'll get diverted here.

ATD... good point.

Anyone feel threatened that their very design industry itself could self-suicide? That software might get TOO good and easy to learn, almost AI'ish, and we'll be out of a job?

"What are you going to do Dave?"
-I want to design somthing.
"Why don't you take a stress pill, I'll do it for you."
-Yeah?
"Yes Dave, I have hundreds of "vibe" words for you to choose from. Just answer yes or no to the next 50 questions, tell me the type filename, and I'll feed in the type, choose some images and give you 4 rough drafts to choose from."
-Gee thanks Hal. And how's that plan for world domination going?

this is a much greater threat to India/China/Japan than to the West. The US has coal, Russia natural gas, and Europe nuclear. The West has the infrastructure and more importantly the natural resources to deal with declining oil production...India/China/Japan for the most part don't.

take special note of India/Japan (and to a lesser extent China)...we can feed ourselves. They can't. War and famine usually go hand in hand...

Yeeesh! I remember that thread... yikes!
"Old Corpse" was making grandiose statements without much scientific backing, and then strutting around saying it was a "Knock down" argument and he was "victorious!"

Don't go there! There are some good points, but Old Corpse so dominated that thread that reading became painful.

what bothers me is the notion that the oil has or will "run out." This isn't quite true. Primary, secondary, and tertiary oil recovery will, at today's level of technology, yield between 40% to just under 50% of the reserve in any given well. Thus, a well that is said to have "run dry" is actually not dry, but rather has become too expensive/impractical to continue drilling. There's still oil there, it's really just a question of getting it...

Hi Beatsme,
Yes... the main reason I see Australia and the US being "Mad Max" proof is that we do have so much coal.

However, does having a lot of coal put it in your car?
The Hirsch report to the US DOE looked specifically at existing coal to liquids technology, and concluded that 20 years was how long it would take to ramp up coal. So there is a VAST difference between myself and the "Doomers" that predict Mad Max... but I am still pretty "Doomer" compared to the many happy go-lucky consumers I see just going about business and complaining about high oil prices. They ain't seen nothing yet, and there are no technological silver bullets. None  zip.

We can get by... but it's going to HURT and require profound change. My main thing is awareness. The worldwide famous inventer of the double decker train is Roy Leembruggen and he's recommending the emergency construction of old fashioned trolley buses. You know, electric buses  like trams but without having to install the rail.

But you are right to also raise concern about food. How will it get from where we grow it to where we eat it? And given that it takes 10 Calories of oil and gas energy in current industrial agriculture models, how will we grow enough food in the first place? There are answers to these questions, but the technological POSSIBILITY of something does not make it a political reality.

Hi Beatsme... yeah, well about 30 o 40% of the oil is never recovered. Your point? I mean I know it's still down there, but why bother if it takes 2 barrels of oil equivalent energy to only retrieve 1? It's financially and economically not viable.

It opens and closes with scenes from Mad Max... which is unhelpful. Puts it in the "too hard to think about" basket for many people immediately. But it's real. I'm convinced we have only a few years at best before oil peaks. Then it starts to decline at 2  5  maybe even 8% per annum, and the price skyrockets overnight in a bidding war that will not end until the whole of western civilization has shifted from oil onto a mix of trolley buses, trams, rail, pushbikes, and ultimately... New Urbanism.

I mean, there will be challenges keeping the electricity GRID going after peak oil because of the way so much coal mining is based on oil. But we can do it... yet it ain't gonna be pretty.

Can everyone with broadband watch the ABC show above before replying? It's a great introduction by the Australian ABC... and is WELL worth watching. I've been in email correspondence with a number of the contributors... and the politician, Andrew McNamara, assures me that even though he's been going on about it for a year now there is still no "Plan B" for dealing with this. It's real. The maths is undeniable, even though big oil pretend otherwise. (Except for Chevron... see their website.... http://willyoujoinus.com/ "One thing is clear: the era of easy oil is over.")

But you are right to also raise concern about food. How will it get from where we grow it to where we eat it? And given that it takes 10 Calories of oil and gas energy in current industrial agriculture models, how will we grow enough food in the first place? There are answers to these questions, but the technological POSSIBILITY of something does not make it a political reality.

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Agreed. My real concern about food is that vast amount of petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides used in agriculture. Production costs will undoubtedly go up as oil prices go up, and rising food prices are generally bad news for everyone. This kind of thing may well crush the fast food/casual dining industry in the US. Whether that's a bad thing is open to question.

As for getting food from point A to point B...yeesh. I would imagine there's some form of rationing on the horizon, with delivery getting the lion's share of current production and personal use being rather more restricted...

...which doesn't bother me much. I would LOVE to give up having a car. I mean, I like having one, but the $300 per month it costs me in car payments/insurance/gasoline is something I would gladly live without.

Hi Beatsme... yeah, well about 30 o 40% of the oil is never recovered. Your point? I mean I know it's still down there, but why bother if it takes 2 barrels of oil equivalent energy to only retrieve 1? It's financially and economically not viable.

Hence the end of cheap oil.
Expect $200 a barrel by 2009.

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the point is oil price projections are made based on recovery costs at the current level of technology. I haven't quite ruled out the possibility that further recovery of the remaining reserves will one day become practical. You have to believe the top minds in the profession are working on the problem, inasmuch as they have an interest in staying in business.

interesting site. it reminds me of chris alexander's work from the 60's.

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good ideas, but completely impractical and also heavily dependent on federal spending, which we can ill-afford. Probably the one workable solution is to significantly bump CAFE standards, though there's no way that idea will play well in Michigan or Texas. Lots of electoral votes in those 2 states, lots of money too. Doubt anybody would want to risk political ruin to further the idea. Why do the right thing when you can get re-elected?

It's not undoable or impractical  it's the only thing that will work the other side of the peak. It's just that we have left it too late that makes it un-easy, and everyone wants there to be an easy solution. There is not one.

The maths are interesting if you apply rezoning laws to an area.

Quote

"If the average building life is 60 years, then the city changes at the rate of 1.6% per year....I assumed that instead of building the houses on that same plot as the one demolished you build eco units on the periphery of the city, along the roads preferably. Then you start to ruralise at the same pace as the normal replacement rate. After 50 years, only ten percent of the city is left. From Folke Gunther

There is no one energy alternative to oil that can be implemented in time to prevent the Greater Depression. We are going to have significant infrastructure problems for decades. Our grandchildren may live to see a new lower-energy lifestyle sorted out around New Urbanist principles and an electric transport system, but I think cars are going the way of the dinosaur.

I don't buy into your doomsday scenario. Petrolium based fuel will be fazed out little by little as we move into the future. E85 is on its way as we speak. After that, will be the onslaught of E100.

The laws of business will tell you that if there is money to be made from a product, it will materialize. The oil companies realize that if they don't start investing in a new product, they will eventually price themselves out of business. There is a lot of useless land around the world that will be converted to sugar cain fields and switchgrass crops.

I dont buy into your utopian market will fix it scenario either. Yes necessity is the mother of invention and I understand the market mechanism. The sheer size of the peak oil problem is overwhelming for the beginner. There is nothing that can be scaled up in time. I really suggest that before you embarrass yourself any more, you read the links I have provided.

This post presents a perspective on ethanol from lignocellulose by my friend and co-worker, John Benemann. We have worked on, and been immersed in, biofuels and analyses of fuels from biomass processes for over 3 decades. We are to substantial degrees biotechnologists, as well as chemical engineers and have successful processes going today (methane from wastes. You can google Don Augenstein). We have worked long and hard on biofuels for entities including Exxon (long ago), the Electric Power Research Institute, and others. Our carefully considered view, for which we will be happy to provide abundant evidence is that severe barriers remain to ethanol from lignocellulose. The barriers look as daunting as they did 30 years ago. Ethanol from lignocellulose may indeed come to pass. But the odds against are so dismal that a hydrocarbon fueled 200 mile per gallon passenger automobile would be more likely to be developed.

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Im not into Doomsday scenarios  and I thought I explained that. There are peak oil doomsdayers out there www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net being one of them. Im not there.

But since you raised it, I have to ask is life without a car that unimaginable to you that it would feel like the apocalypse? Maybe you need to get to know your neighbours or try riding a bike again or something!

And I agree that there IS a lot of useless land around the world do you know why? Only a certain percentage of land is arable! (See Wikipedia.)

So for a quick demonstration concerning ethanols viability in the states . Youve heard about the sugar cane ethanol revolution in Brazil? Most of their fuel is ethanol, right? Well, here we go. They somehow miraculously  grow about 100 to 150 thousand barrels of ethanol a day. That is an ENORMOUS amount of ethanol. Somehow they grow it not too far from where its needed, as well. (So they dont burn too much energy freighting the corrosive stuff around.) So its good clean burning renewable energy, and if one uses an Eprida model for sustaining the soil, it might not even have to be fertilized in the normal industrial agribusiness model either.

The problem? America burns 20 MILLION barrels of oil each and every day, and the world burns a staggering 1000 barrels a SECOND! Thats 84 million barrels a day. And Brazils enormous ethanol industry produces 100 thousand barrels a day?

What, you want to chop down every last Amazonian tree and Canadian forest to grow ethanol? Ever hear of Easter Islands dieoff event? (Now youve forced me into doomer territory  but for arguments sake only.)

However, using current farming and production methods, ethanol from corn may not be fully sustainable as a replacement for fossil fuels. The amount of energy needed to produce it is a concern, especially if that energy is derived from fossil sources. For example, one study critical of ethanol assumes massive use of pesticides and fertilizers, which consume fossil fuels and damage the farming environment. However, corn grown for fuel would not need the same pesticide usage as corn grown for food, since consumer reaction (not crop productivity) is a major contributor to prolific pesticide applications. Moreover, the amount of ethanol that could be produced from corn or sugarcane, given the amount of farmland that is available, is likely limited to an amount below what would be needed to replace global petroleum consumption.

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IE: 1. Ethanol grown the wrong way may just be fossil fuels in disguise.
2. There is not enough land to grow enough ethanol.

No mate, we have to think differently. Energy efficient vehicles will be important, but more important is designing and energy efficient civilization. Our city plans can build in more community, more interest, more vitality, more diversity and density and soul than todays American suburban blandness. The marketplace is already demonstrating a turn around, apart from the rubbish the developers buy up, slap up and sell to the unimaginative McFamily living their McLife in their McMansions.

No . ethanol as "silver bullet" to peak oil is a myth.

Yes we will have a need for various biomass schemes, but probably as a backup to solar thermal power plants, just to keep the grid running overnight! As for wasting energy on personal transport vehicles, forget it. Write to your Senator requesting more public transport and buy a bike. Buy from your local farmer's market. And please, read some more links on ethanol... browse through the list of headings under the Energy Bulletin ethanol tags and Energy Bulletin biofuels tags.

I'm not sure we'll see $200 barrel by 2009, eclipse, though I don't think you're too far off. $100 is pretty darned likely at least. Why do you say $200? Mind you, if the rising gas and electricity prices (doubled in tthe UK in three years) are anything to go by, who knows where it will stop. I just want to know how to convince my housemates that turning off computers can actually make a difference to our bills...

eclipse said:

I dont buy into your utopian market will fix it scenario either.

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Absolutely. Energy, not economics. One depends on the other, but not the other way around.

The thing is, we have not "peaked" yet.
Once word hits the markets that this is it, that there is no more to be pumped on a daily basis  86 mbd could be the ceiling  then an international bidding war will spike the price past $200 until governments step in with emergency rationing legislation and nationalize oil?

Who knows what they'll do  when does Dubbya's reign come to an end? That's a frightening scenario... Dubbya in charge when peak oil hits! Errrghgh. But enough... this is bigger than political preferences. As you said dops... the laws of thermodynamics will win over economics every day. I mean gradually the economy will adjust around the new energy realities. It's just a shame about the airline industry, the 1 in 10 American jobs (and possibly Australia's car dependency percolates through the economy to that ratio as well) and the hundreds of trillions of dollars invested in suburbia, a living arrangement that has no future."

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